Mentor home among four raided in statewide child pornography investigation (with video)

Maribeth Joeright/MJoeright@News-Herald.com
Officers from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation carry a computer and a bag of evidence from a house on Beechwood Drive in Mentor that was searched Tuesday as part of a statewide probe of crimes against children.

A Mentor home is among the multiple search warrants executed Tuesday across the state by the Ohio Attorney General's Office regarding crimes against children.

Agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation removed brown paper bags and a computer, among other items, from 7272 Beechwood Drive as part of an investigation into child pornography allegations.

Mentor police assisted the Attorney General's Office, acting as security. Officials with the FBI also were involved in the investigation.

At a 1 p.m. news conference from Columbus, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said four search warrants had been executed by 28 agents and specialists on homes as part of Operation Download, carried out by the Crimes Against Children Unit.

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The names of the suspects have not yet been released. Attorney General spokeswoman Jill Del Greco said no one was yet arrested in the Mentor case, but one person was questioned. She also anticipates the local prosecutor will take the case to a grand jury.

DeWine said he wanted to deliver a clear, firm message with today's warrants.

"We're going after you, we're going to catch you and we're going to put you in jail, which is where you belong," DeWine said.

Through "covert surveillance" methods, DeWine said the CAC Unit was able to identify individuals who were both looking at and sharing pictures and videos of child pornography over the Internet. He would not elaborate on what methods were used, but he described them as accepted practices of law enforcement.

He added while the crimes are similar, the cases are not related to one another.

Computers and other media devices were collected from the homes, and authorities expect anywhere from a handful to several hundred images and videos to be found. Authorities will be analyzing the evidence in the coming days, said DeWine.

"Downloading and sharing child pornography is not a victimless crime. The children in the photographs are victimized each time someone views an image," DeWine said. "These predators need to know that we are aggressively coming after them."

The attorney general also described the crimes as despicable and intolerable.

"If you think you can sit in your home and look at your computer and transmit pictures of child porn, of little children, and not get caught, you're wrong," DeWine said. "The four people targeted today are just the beginning."

The other search warrants were executed in Hamden in Vinton County, Walbridge in Wood County and in an as yet undisclosed location in southwest Ohio.

Operation Download is part of the ongoing Crimes Against Children Initiative announced in late 2011. Since its beginning, authorities have investigated 170 cases of rape, child pornography, sexual assault, child abuse, human trafficking and sex offender registry violations.